Senior Congress leader and former Union Minister P. Chidambaram on Friday termed the BJP-led NDA government’s decision in replacing the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) with the Viksit Bharat -G Ram G Act as an adverse action.
The NDA government had “buried” the MGNREGA brought in by the previous Congress -led United Progressive Alliance government that provided a framework for a nation-wide rural employment generation, Mr. Chidambaram said.
Speaking to journalists at Pudukottai, he said the new Act of the NDA government was exactly opposite to the 100-day job guarantee scheme of the UPA regime. Stating that the new Act would hit the poorer sections of the society below their belt, Mr. Chidambaram claimed that they would never forgive the Centre.
Making a comparison between the two Acts, Mr. Chidambaram said the MGNREGA was “demand driven”, while the new Act was “supply driven”. The Centre was responsible for full disbursement of wages under the MGNREGA. However, this was not the case in the new Act under which the total cost for wages to be shared between the Centre and the State was 60:40, he said.
At a time when the State governments themselves were under severe financial burden and obtaining loans after approval from the Centre, how many State governments would execute the new scheme when they had to bear 40% of the cost, he wondered. The State governments would have to bear a huge financial burden under the new statutory framework, Mr. Chidambaram further said. There was a guarantee under the MGNREGA, while there was no such guarantee on the part of the Centre and the State under the new framework.
